<p>Which one is better Emory or Brown for philosophy?</p>
<p>This is way too open-ended of a question. The best advice I can give you is to look up the professors in the philosophy departments of both schools, read about them and then decide for yourself. If you were asking about pre-med or pre-law, someone might have relevant statistics but with philosophy it’s much more qualitative. Also, I don’t think that their are very many philosophy majors at Emory (imagine it’s a small percentage at most schools). So if you’re judging by where students get into PhD programs, the sample size is too small to tell whether the departments did a good job motivating the students or there were just a few lucky years where they had some good students who were interested in pursuing philosophy. </p>
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<li>I don’t think that there were many philosophy majors at Emory</li>
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<p>I feel as if classics and philosophy are standard double (and often non-primary/non-priority) majors at Emory. My guess would be Brown for this unless you were pre-prof. or planned on double majoring in something that is stronger at Emory than at Brown (like chem, neuro, or even bio or something). </p>
<p>Brown is a much more liberal school than Emory. I imagine that there are more students who are interested in college for the sake of learning rather than just preparing for a career.</p>
<p>Also, Brown is much harder to get accepted to than Emory. I honestly don’t think that many people get into both and chose Emory unless there is a strong financial incentive to do so.</p>
<p>Whoa is me with my weird sleep cycle, but I feel that this has nothing to do with liberalism, but the second quality is likely more true at Brown than it is at many of the other Ivies or selective privates. They just probably do not have that much to do with each other. Curriculum structure and socioeconomic background (not just class, but background. Like old vs. new money and stuff like that) will create different types of academic/intellectual environments a lot moreso than anything else. Many Ivies are quite liberal, but have the stereotypical pre-professionalism you see at places like Emory. Also, the admissions thing is true, though I feel it reflects on how dumb/prestige and rank driven seniors are when applying to schools, because Brown is one of the 2 Ivies that I feel is actually not much better (if better at all) than Emory. I suppose the grade inflation and open curriculum make it a nice option. Other than that…it’s just a standard top school labelled as an Ivy and it gets a serious boost from that.</p>
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<p>Just my 2 cents, playing off of Bernie: I was accepted to both Emory and Brown as a transfer. I chose Emory for opportunities in science but found an unusually robust humanities core here at Emory (my other major is interdisciplinary studies, by the way). I’m one of those anti-pre-professional students here at Emory. I can’t say it’s been easy but you do find students who want to be here for the sake of learning; just gotta dig a little. Also, I know philosophy majors who have received admission to great graduate school programs (Harvard, Yale). My advice would be to look at the faculty and see who you’d want to take classes from. Both schools look like the profs teach their own classes (cool, easy connects); both look like they have good class diversity. I don’t think you can go wrong with either. </p>
<p>FWIW, I encountered Brown students during a summer program at Stanford and we shared our thoughts on undergraduate education. I shared some of the insights on classes I’d taken here at Emory and they kind of looked at me wide-eyed and said they wished their classes were like mine; goes to show that a wide course selection and an innovative curriculum doesn’t necessarily mean intellectually rigorous classes (both students said they can easily memorize things in their classes without logically thinking through solutions). So, I agree with Bernie. Brown is a great school, but I don’t think it is ahead of Emory at all. Again, selectivity is only driven by the fact that people know about Brown because it’s been an Ivy for about 75 years prior to Emory’s founding. Also, I think it being in the NE helps its case, but that’s another story. There is also a good amount of pre-professionals there too – given their engineering school, their high amount of pre-laws, and most of their bio majors are premed. But hell, it’s Brown so it must be better than Emory, right? 
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<p>@KevAquarius: Brown is the school that designed what is essentially a “softcore” pre-med track for its students called PLE. Now to say they aren’t catering to pre-healths/pre-profs. and that they are about real intellectualism might be a slight stretch. Of course they would claim that PLE is all “in the name of the liberal arts” lol. In reality, this is just how pre-health is treated at schools with gen. ed requirements (which apparently Brown AS does not have). The only thing different is the fact that it is a Bachelors/MD program. <a href=“Requirements | Program in Liberal Medical Education | Medical School | Brown University”>Program in Liberal Medical Education | Medical School | Brown University. I like how there, adding “liberal arts” classes to the pre-med core is considered unusual because of how “open” their curriculum is otherwise.</p>
<p>This post was originally about choosing a school for a philosophy major. I would say for that major, go where there are professors who interest you.</p>
<p>Maybe I was wrong about Brown having more students who are interested in going to school for the sake of learning. I am just basing this off a few students that I know who went on to become liberal arts PhDs. However, I am pretty confident that it’s a more liberal school than Emory. It has the reputation as being the most liberal Ivy, and it attracts that type of student because of this. I know one Republican person who went there and said that people almost got in fights with him over his political views. I don’t know if this is an exaggeration because I wasn’t there.</p>
<p>All of the Ivies (and most selective schools including Emory-but I suppose we have students who are religiously conservative and I do not just mean Christian) are pretty liberal apparently…and I would buy that perhaps Yale and Brown (and maybe Dartmouth) would be most liberal. I think Emory is technically the most liberal out of Vandy, Duke, Rice, and us…but it is still somewhat apathetic just as those places are. But again, I don’t think that influences the academic program quality and who pursues them. Like Harvard is amazing at philosophy because it is well…amazing at philosophy. It invested in the quality of that program just like Emory (or the departmental faculty) invests in German, English, Creative Writing, and many other non-science areas in terms of undergraduate education. They are popular and well-known because they are actually good as judged internally and externally. I can’t really explain why and how they became so good, they just are…One would not predict Emory just sort of randomly becoming this hotbed for writers. I guess some departmental development is just serendipitous and dependent upon lots of other things happening at a school (like Emory doing well with special collections and rare books probably made many curious and that’s how we got certain top faculty…in addition it led to some well known lectureships)</p>
<p>I think that all of the Ivies are liberal. But I’ve heard that Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth are the most conservative of the bunch. Brown is almost surely the most liberal. I visited the campus a while ago and there were posters all over advertising left wing events, one describing how the US was moving down the road to fascism, ect. I’ve heard that they have nude parties; Couldn’t image that happening at Emory. I think even in the 60’s it was the one of the most “hippy” influenced school in the country. </p>
<p>Yale and Harvard had some very significant protests perhaps very similar to the ones at Berkeley. Maybe Yale has changed. Harvard is the "interesting’ one (as always) I suppose. They apparently have a dorm known for its foam parties. I can’t imagine a nude party because Emory is known for a pre-professionalism and many students will go to great lengths to protect their reputation or avoid things that may make them look questionable in the eyes of prof. schools. This is especially the case for pre-healths. However, I have observed streaking before (usually by Greeks). One was very odd in that it was during summer and some Greeks just decided to ride their skateboards nude through campus. But a full fledged party…no. I don’t know if it has to do with political disposition so much as risk aversion. </p>